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Frozen Desserts: Water
Water Ice. Sweetened fruit juice, diluted with water, requires B level measures ice to 1 salt MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK Sherbet.-A water ice, to which has been added a small quantity of dissolved gelatin or beaten whites of eggs.
Frappé. Water ice frozen to the consistency of mush. Frappé requires equal quantities of ice and salt to give it a granular consistency.
Punch.-A water ice, to which has been added spirits or spices for stronger flavoring.
Frozen Fruits.-Fruit pulp frozen where one or several kinds of fruits have been used.
Philadelphia Ice Cream.-A custard foundation thin cream, and flavoring. Mousse (Parfait or Fruit Pudding).-Heavy cream, whipped stiff, sweetened, flavored, poured in a mold, packed in ice and salt (2 parts ice to 1 salt), and allowed to stand three or four hours. Mousse is also made from the whip off thin cream folded into a mixture containing a small quantity of gelatin.
Cider Ice.
WATER ICES 1 quart cider, 1 cupful orange juice, cupful lemon juice, 1½ cupfuls sugar.
Dissolve the sugar in the cider, add the fruit juice, mix the ingredients, and freeze.
Orange Ice. 4 cupfuls water, 2 cupfuls orange juice, 2 cupfuls sugar, cupful lemon juice, Grated rind 2 oranges.
Boil sugar and water twenty minutes. Add fruit juices and grated rind; cool, strain, and freeze.
Apple Water Ice. 6 large tart apples, 2 cupfuls sugar, 4 cupfuls water, 2 lemons.
Put the apples, sugar, and water on to boil, add the grated yellow rind of 1 lemon. Cook until the apples are reduced to a pulp, take from the fire, drain carefully, without squeezing, add the juice of the lemons; when cold, freeze.
Currant Water Ice. 2 cupfuls red-currant juice, 2 cupfuls sugar, 2 cupfuls boiling water.
Add the sugar to the boiling water, and stir until dissolved. When cold, add the currant juice, and freeze.
This is a glossary of frozen desserts followed by four water ices, all built on the same principle: a sweetened liquid churned in a bucket freezer packed with ice and rock salt. The recipes translate cleanly to a modern machine, but the sugar-to-liquid ratio is the part that decides whether you get a smooth ice or a solid block.
- The ice-and-salt ratiosThe numbers given are volumes of crushed ice to coarse rock salt, packed around the canister of a hand-crank or bucket freezer. The figure for water ices is garbled in this text ("B level measures ice to 1 salt"), though 3 parts ice to 1 of salt was the usual proportion; frappe uses equal parts, which drops the temperature faster and gives the coarse granular texture; a mousse packed to set without churning uses 2 to 1. None of this applies to a modern compressor or pre-frozen-bowl machine, which needs no salt at all.
- Sugar is structure, not just sweetnessOrange ice at 2 cups sugar to 6 cups liquid, and currant ice at 2 to 4, sit near the classic sorbet range. Cutting the sugar to modern taste will give you a hard, icy block rather than a scoopable ice, since sugar is what depresses the freezing point.
- Ambiguous quantitiesSeveral lines read simply "cupful lemon juice" with no fraction. In the cider and orange ices a quarter to a half cup of lemon juice is consistent with the proportions; start at a quarter cup and taste before freezing.
- CiderIn this period "cider" in an American cookbook usually means unfermented sweet apple cider rather than the alcoholic drink, though the text does not say which. Use fresh unpasteurized-style cider if you can get it; bottled apple juice is thinner and much sweeter, so pull the sugar back.
- Straining the apple iceThe instruction to drain "without squeezing" is the hinge of that recipe. Pressing the pulp forces cloudy starch and fibre through and the ice sets grainy; let it drip through a jelly bag or fine sieve and accept the lower yield.
- Boiling the syrupTwenty minutes of boiling in the orange ice reduces the water noticeably and concentrates the syrup. If you shorten it, the ice will be softer and less sweet; a modern approach is to heat only until the sugar dissolves, then chill thoroughly.
- Chill before churningThree of the four say to cool or wait until cold before freezing; the cider ice, which is never heated, does not. A warm base overwhelms the machine and produces large ice crystals. Refrigerate the base to at least 40F, ideally overnight.
- Currant juiceRed currants are seasonal and hard to find fresh in much of North America; frozen currants or bottled red currant juice both work. The juice is very tart and low in sugar, which is why the recipe carries an equal volume of sugar.
- Yield and servingEach of these makes roughly 1.5 to 2 quarts of base, enough for six to eight servings. Water ices are best within a day or two; without dairy fat or stabilizer they turn hard and crystalline in the freezer.
By the late nineteenth century a cookbook's frozen-dessert chapter typically opened, as this one does, with a taxonomy: ice, sherbet, frappe, punch, mousse, Philadelphia ice cream. The distinctions were practical rather than fussy, because each required a different ice-and-salt packing and a different amount of cranking. The commercial ice trade, cutting and storing lake ice through the winter, made this whole category possible for ordinary households; a bucket freezer and a sack of rock salt were standard summer equipment. "Philadelphia" ice cream is the old trade term for a cream-based mixture, in contrast to the custard-based "French" style, though the definition as printed here has clearly lost a word or two. Frozen punch, spiked with spirits, was often served mid-meal as a palate cleanser at formal dinners.